Living in the Moment (Part Two)
By John Foley
The final paragraph of Living in the Moment (part one) talked about stopping your patterned reactions. Patterned reactions are our defence mechanism to our buttons when they are pushed; they may have, at some point in the past, proved to be a successful defence. Therefore we have repeated them and developed them into our patterned/conditioned reactions.
The simple techniques I am about to suggest are intended to help you in allowing yourself to be aware and to observe that this patterned reaction is happening to you; to allow yourself to be aware of your thoughts, feelings/emotions and even physical reaction, often manifested through body language.
Technique 1: Breathing
I am not talking about deep breathing as in relaxation methods. I am talking about becoming consciously aware of our breathing. The aim is to free our mind from turmoil and hone in on a single activity. Why would we want to do this? Because if we do not our less aware self via our patterned reaction will take control. First you need to physically feel your breath. In a calm, quiet place close your eyes; focus in on the hair follicles at the entrance to your nose and allow yourself to feel the air as it is drawn into your nose. You are now mindfully watching your bodily sensation of breathing. You are not controlling or thinking about it; you are simply observing. This observing is the essence to ‘living in the moment’. Once you are aware that you can watch your emotional and physical reactions you are capable of simply watching the feeling alone, ignoring (for the moment) other factors. There may be times when you will notice certain things about your conditioned self that you do not like. This is your opportunity to track down and understand the root cause of your patterned/conditioned reactions. This leads to Technique two.
Technique 2: Self-understanding
Be patient. Do not expect anything, do not strain, do not rush, do not cling or reject (let come what comes), do not dwell on differences between people or attitudes. Embrace differences, as your own view is never always accurate or inaccurate. Allow warm healthy feelings and good wishes to flow through you; be as a child that has not learnt to hide feelings. Do not hide your feelings from yourself; they can not catch you unawares if you know they are there.
Technique 3: Self-observation
As our life is one of motion we need to realise that there will be times when we will need to observe ourselves and move at the same time. This Exercise involves walking. Just 5 to 10 steps, then turning around and walking back (perhaps in a passage way). Notice your breathing as in technique 1 and focus on the feeling of your feet on the floor, tendons flexing as you step forward and the sensations of your body in motion.
This will not remove any emotions you are experiencing; it simply helps you to place them behind a glass screen, so that you can become aware of them, as you are aware of the sensations of your breathing and the sensations of your body in motion. In other words your emotions are not controlling you. Yes they exist, you can feel them and observe the way you are feeling; be it frustration, anger, hurt, unloved or misunderstood. The difference is you are seeing these things, which is a big step from reacting to them in the only way you have learnt: by sarcasm, emotional quips, insults or physical lash-outs.
My intention in writing this article was to help you to become aware that alternatives do exist; that you, can change, what you can observe.
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